Portland is making progress on affordable, fair housing

The Oregonian's recent series "Locked Out" (June 3-6) took a narrow view of regional efforts to build and preserve affordable housing in our community.

While it's true that there are barriers to fair housing in the Portland metro region, the series takes a view of the many factors driving change in our community that is too simplistic. It dismisses the impact of powerful market forces such as historically low apartment vacancy rates, rising rents and land availability; ignores the role of personal choice; and vastly overstates government's ability to shape the market.

The series also ignored substantive changes in the Section 8 program (landlords are now required to pursue tenants for damages previously paid by Section 8 and the decreasing subsidy amounts), which have contributed to landlords with a small number of units leaving the program.

Last September, the Portland City Council unanimously adopted Portland's first Fair Housing Action Plan to break down barriers and increase housing opportunities for minorities and people with low incomes in our community. The Oregonian Editorial Board called it "a bold plan" and wrote that "it's especially heartening that the city is going to do something loud about [discrimination] -- now and going forward."

The Fair Housing Advocacy Committee is a result of this plan. We are citizen volunteers and housing experts working with local jurisdictions and nonprofit housing providers to direct the city's fair housing strategy. Despite claims made in the recent series, we have made significant progress in the past eight months. The effectiveness of building coalitions cannot be underestimated. The city has increased coordination with fair housing enforcement officials to draft a cohesive and fair approach to going after landlords who discriminate. Our partners in the landlord community have independently decided to implement new practices, training and education to ensure better compliance with fair housing law.

Our committee helped craft and evaluate the city's request for proposals for a company to do fair housing testing. Ultimately, we decided that the respondents were not up to the challenge. We are working with the city attorney to make sure that the agency we choose to conduct testing provides accurate and reliable results that protect privacy while allowing the worst offenders to be prosecuted.

The city has improved outreach efforts to underserved communities, translating fair housing information into multiple languages.

More than 370 landlords and rental agents attended fair housing trainings last year, an increase over previous years. The city will increase its investment in outreach and education to culturally specific groups this year.

The city has taken a balanced, dual-track approach to housing investments, acting to extend the benefits of a livable community to everyone, in every part of our city. Portland Housing Bureau investments revitalize neighborhoods by improving the quality of affordable rental homes for people at every income level, while also investing in strong neighborhoods to ensure that they include affordable homes and remain open to all. Over the past four years, the city has invested in a variety of neighborhoods, including South Waterfront, Lents, Arbor Lodge, Cully, North Tabor and Hillsdale.